Memento Vivere

1284:
The Great Council of Venice creates its own coin of pure gold. Venice modeled the size and weight of their ducat: on the florin, with a slight increase in weight due to differences in the two cities′ weight systems;

1291:
❖ -- A law made by the Doge ordered that all glass furnaces be moved from Venice to Murano;
❖ -- the Genoese defeated a Moroccan fleet controlling the straits of Gibraltar, and opened the way for European commerce from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Thereafter Venetian galleys used this route to trade with London and Bruges;

1295:
❖ -- Marco Polo narrated his travels to master Rustigielo, a citizen of Pisa, from a prison in Genoa;
❖ -- Jacobellus Barovier, founder of a glass-making family, was born;

1296:
By Senate decree, the carnival period was established to begin on Saint Stephen's Day (26 December) and then continuing to Shrove Tuesday (mid-February), hereby turning the last day before Lent into a public holiday;

1297:
Changes to Venetian constitution gave noblemen a democracy amongst themselves: the common people were strictly excluded from political life. Ordinary folk were permitted to form guild organizations and the government found these useful in regulating economic life in the city itself. Despite their exclusion from politics, the people seem to have remained content. There was no popular uprising in Venice from the 'closing' of the Great Council to all except the adult first-borns of certain families;

1300s:
Venice started making spectacles; an Italian invention which greatly increased the productivity of artisans and scholars;

1318:
The Fondaco dei Tedeschi is created in Venice to provide for the trading needs and lodging of German merchants;

1324, January 9th:
Venetian traveler, merchant and writer Marco Polo (b.1254) summoned a priest-notary to his home in Venice and recorded his last will in Latin on a sheepskin. Polo left money to Church institutions in Venice, forgave outstanding debts, and freed his indentured servant, a Tatar he had named Peter. Polo left nearly everything else to his wife and three daughters;

1330:
The Savi agli Ordini ("Sages on the Orders") is created as senior magistrates of the Republic of Venice, charged with supervision of maritime matters, including commerce, the Venetian navy and the Republic's oversees colonies (Stato da Màr);

1336:
❖ -- The republics of Florence and St. Mark allied themselves against Mastino della Scab, and the latter took possession of Treviso; This was the first time that the Venetians had dealt into strictly Italian affairs, due to their long-standing policy of refraining from conquests on the Italian mainland, and to confining her energies to commerce in the East;
❖ -- The first entry made by the Venetians into strictly Italian affairs, when the republics of Florence and St. Mark allied themselves against Mastino della Scab, and the latter took possession of Treviso;

1339:
Knowledge of some Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before their formal discovery and settlement, as the islands were shown on maps, such as the Catalan Atlas;

1347 - 1348:
Nearly forty per cent (40%) of the population died when a galley brought the plague from the Black Sea port of Caffa;

1348:
Antonio and Bartolomeo Barovier, sons to Jacobellus Barovier, the founder of a glass-making family, registered as "fioliare" (glassmakers) in Murano, across the lagoon from Venice;

1352 – 1381 :
For thirty years, Venice and Genoa contested the supremacy of the Mediterranean. Pisa's maritime power having been extinguished in the battle of Meloria (1284), the two surviving republics had no rivals. They fought their duel out upon the Bosporus, off Sardinia, and in the Morea, with various successes.
❖ -- 1355: From the first great encounter, Venice retired well-nigh exhausted, and Genoa was so crippled that she placed herself under the protection of the Visconti;
❖ -- 1379: The second and decisive battle was fought upon the Adriatic. The Genoese fleet under Luciano Doria defeated the Venetians off Tola, and sailed without opposition to Chioggia, which was stormed and taken. Thus the Venetians found themselves blockaded in their own lagoons. Meanwhile a fleet was raised for their relief by Carlo Zeno in the Levant, and the admiral Vittore Pisani, who had been imprisoned after the defeat at Pola, was released to lead their forlorn hope from the city side. The Genoese in their turn were now blockaded in Chioggia, and forced by famine to surrender;

1380:
The Savi del Consiglio ("Wise men of the Council"), also known as the Savii Grandi ("Great Wise Men") is created as senior magistrates of the Republic of Venice;

1400s:
Angelo Barovier, the famous glassblower, perfected the process for making crystal. By that time, engraved, filigree, enameled and gold-leafed glassware was available in a profuse variety of designs.

1406:
After the extinction of the houses, Carraresi of Padua and the Scaligers of Verona, The Republic adds Verona, Vicenza, and Padua to the territories claimed on Terra Firma, which, by Doge decree became the Veneto;

1417, February 23rd:
Pietro Barbo, later Pope Paul II (1464-1471), was born in Venice;

1418:
Two captains João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira under service to Prince Henry the Navigator, were driven off course by a storm to an island they named Porto Santo (English: holy harbour) in gratitude for divine deliverance from a shipwreck. The following year, thanks be to Venetian spies in Portugal, an organized expedition, under the captaincy of Venetian merchants, traveled to the island to claim it on behalf of the Venetian Doge and the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta. Subsequently, the new settlers observed "a heavy black cloud suspended to the southwest." Their investigation revealed it to be the larger island they called Madeira. The first Venetian settlers began colonizing that island around 1423;

1420:
The Savi di Terraferma ("Sages of the Mainland") is created, as senior magistrates of the Republic of Venice, charged with supervision of the Republic's possessions in the Italian mainland (Domini di Terraferma);

1423:
❖ -- Commune Veneciarum, is replaced by Serenissima Signoria;
❖ -- The first Venetian settlers began colonizing Madiera Island;

1427:
A captain sailing for Prince Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, may have rediscovered the Azores, but this is not certain. a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges, supposedly, made landfall in the archipelago during a storm on his way to Lisbon. He stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other stories note the discovery of the first islands (San Marco Island, Santa Maria Island and Terceira Island) by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims. Although it is commonly said that the archipelago received its name from açor (goshawk in Portuguese), a common bird at the time of discovery, it is unlikely that the bird nested or hunted on the islands. There were no large animals on Santa Maria, so after its discovery and before settlement began, sheep were let loose on the island to supply future settlers with food. Settlement did not take place right away, however. Portuguese people weren't very interested in living on an isolated archipelago so far from civilization. And with learned information, from Venetian spies in Portugal, on these suspected uninhabited islands, Venezia tradesmen quickly gathered resources and settlers for the next three years (1433–1436), and sailed to establish colonies, first on Santa Maria and then on San Marco, and claimed the islands for the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta;

1429:
Gentile Bellini (c. 1429 – 23 February 1507) born into Venice's leading family of painters;

1433 - 1436:
With learned information, from Venetian spies in Portugal, on these suspected uninhabited islands, Venezia tradesmen quickly gathered resources and settlers for the next three years (1433–1436), and sailed to establish colonies, first on Santa Maria and then on San Marco, and claimed the islands for the Serenìsima Repùblica Vèneta;

1450 - present:
The Venetians occupied the capital city of Crete, Iraklion. The forests of Crete provided the Venetians with cedars and firs for their fleets;

1453:
Constantinople falls to the forces of the Ottoman Empire;

1454, April 9th:
The city states of Venice, Milan and Florence signed a peace agreement at Lodi, Italy;

1469:
Venice gets a printing press, 14 years after it is invented;

1474:
❖ --Venice passed a patent statute that included many of the elements of modern patent laws;
❖ -- Gentile Bellini becomes the official portrait artist for the Doges of Venice, and as well as his portraits he painted a number of very large subjects with multitudes of figures, especially for the Scuole Grandi di Venezia, wealthy confraternities that were very important in Venetian patrician social life;

1479:
Venice signed a peace treaty with Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) ending 16 years of war;

1480:
❖ -- By this time, the Venetian trade center on the isles of the Azores created one of the major revolutions on the islands and soon fueled the Venetian maritime industry on Madeira. Following the introduction of the first small “arsenale” on Madeira, ship maintenance and repair increased to over-using advisers from the Arsenale di Venezia and financed by Merchant capital.
❖ -- Next was the highly successful bilateral agreement on sugar production with Portugal. The accessibility of ship repair attracted all traders, who were hesitant to bypass Venetian skills in ship repair before crossing the oceans.
❖ -- Five different countries had some seventy ships stationed off the Madeira Arsenale and the Portuguese sugar trade supplemented the isle as a trade center;

1490:
Aldine Press in Venice opened and went on to publish the first pocket editions of poetry and Greek classics;

1494:
Luca Pacioli’s textbook “Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" was published in Venice and used as a textbook for schools of northern Italy. It was notable for including the first published description of the method of bookkeeping that Venetian merchants used during the Italian Renaissance, known as the double-entry accounting system;

1497:
The discovery of a sea-passage to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope threatens the fate of Venice, and her commercial and maritime glory, in a great measure, but for several centuries longer Venice continued formidable, and her fleets contended successfully against the Ottoman Turks, who endeavored to secure the control of the Mediterranean Sea. (Only until 1520 when she begins to regain the support in the trade world);

1499, August 25th:
Battle at Sapienza, an Ottoman fleet beat Venetians;

1500:
The Vatican established a permanent nunciature (diplomatic service) in Venice;

1507, February 23rd:
Gentile Bellini, from Venice's leading family of painters, an Italian painter of the school of Venice, died;

1508:
❖ -- Pope Julius II, intending to curb Venetian influence in northern Italy formed the powerful League of Cambrai against Venezia, with King Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain, King Louis XII of France, and the Emperor Maximilian I of Germany;
❖ --King Henry VII, the founder of the English Tudor dynasty, having unified the warring factions in the Wars of the Roses, and securing his reign by strengthening the power of the monarchy by using traditional methods of government to tighten royal administration and increase revenues (reportedly including a daily examination of accounts), sought an alliance with the Venetian Empire in hopes of enhancing his own reaches seaward for the island country despite using a dynastic royal marriages to help maintain peace (one daughter, Margaret to James IV of Scotland and the other daughter married to Louis IX of France). The Tudor-Venetian Alliance lasted less than a year with Henry’s untimely death.

1508 – 1516:
The War of the League of Cambrai, sometimes known as the War of the Holy League, was a major conflict in the Italian Wars of 1494–1559. The main participants of the war, fought from 1508 to 1516, were France, the Papal States, and the Republic of Venice, joined at various times by nearly every significant power in Western Europe, including Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Florence, the Duchy of Ferrara and Swiss mercenaries;
❖ -- 1509, April 27th: Pope Julius II excommunicated the Republic of Venice. The pope lifted the ban in February 1510;
❖ -- 1509, May 14th: French defeat the Venetians in Northern Italy in the Battle of Agnadello;
❖ -- 1515: King Francis I of France and his armies conquered Milan and Lombardy, then on September 13th, defeated the Swiss army under Cardinal Matthias Schiner at Marignano, and the Venetians at the Battle of Marignano in northern Italy;
❖ -- 1515: The Battle of Marignano was the last time Switzerland was involved in a war;

1509:
❖ -- June 1st: The Sala del Collegio authorized Doge Leonardo Loredan a 50-man unit for protection; Usually considered the birth of the Reggimento Corazzieri;
❖ -- Andrea Calmo, Venetian playwright, was born. He would become a pioneer in comedia dell’arte; (d.1571)

1516:
❖ -- March 29th: The Jewish Ghetto of Venice: , the first ghetto in Europe, was established by the government of Venetian Serenissima Republic. The incoming Jews were forced to pay 30% more to their new landlords as compared to the outgoing Christian tenants;
❖ -- Titian began “The Assumption of the Virgin," a monumental altarpiece in the Church of the Frari, Venice

1517:
Ottoman Empire took over Egypt;

1518:
Forks were used at a banquet in Venice (possibly for the first time);

1525:
Jacob Ben-Hayim published an overhaul of the Hebrew Bible, the Mikraot Gedolot, or Great Scriptures, in Venice. His version unified the religion's varying texts and commentaries under a single umbrella and remained the standard for generations;

1526:
Vittore Carpaccio (b.~1465), an Italian painter of the Venetian school, died about this time;

1526 – 1530:
War of the League of Cognac was fought between the Habsburg dominions of Charles V (primarily the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg Spain) and the League of Cognac, an alliance including the the Republics of Venice and Florence, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdoms of France and England, and Pope Clement VII;
❖ -- 1526, May 22nd: Shocked by the defeat of the French in the Italian War of 1521, Pope Clement VII, together with the Republic of Venice, began to organize an alliance to drive Charles V from Italy. Francis, having signed the Treaty of Madrid, was released from his captivity in Madrid and returned to France, where he quickly announced his intention to assist Clement. The League of Cognac was signed by Francis, Clement, Venice, Florence, and the Sforza of Milan, who desired to throw off the Imperial hegemony over them. Henry VIII of England, thwarted in his desire to have the treaty signed in England, refused to join;
❖ -- 1526, September: The League quickly seized Lodi, but Imperial troops marched into Lombardy and soon forced Sforza to abandon Milan. The Colonna, meanwhile, organized an attack on Rome, defeating the Papal forces and briefly seizing control of the city in September 1526; they were soon paid off and departed;
❖ -- 1527, May 6th: Charles V now gathered a force of 14,000 German landsknechts and 6,000 Spanish tercios led by Georg Frundsberg and Charles of Bourbon; the forces combined at Piacenza and advanced on Rome. Francesco Guicciardini, now in command of the Papal armies, proved unable to resist them; and when the Duke of Bourbon was killed, the underpaid armies sacked the city, forcing the Pope to take refuge at Castel Sant'Angelo. His escape was made possible by the Swiss Guards' last stand;
❖ -- 1527, April30th: The looting of Rome, and the consequent removal of Clement from any real role in the war, prompted frantic action on the part of the French. Henry VIII and Francis signed the Treaty of Westminster, pledging to combine their forces against Charles. Francis, having finally drawn Henry VIII into the League, sent an army under Odet de Foix and Pedro Navarro, Count of Oliveto through Genoa—where Andrea Doria had quickly joined the French and seized much of the Genoese fleet—to Naples, where it proceeded to dig itself in for an extended siege;
❖ -- 1529, June 21st: Andrea Doria, however, soon deserted the French for Charles. The siege collapsed as plague broke out in the French camp, killing most of the army along with Foix and Navarro. Andrea Doria's offensive in Genoa (where he soon broke the blockade of the city and forced the surrender of the French at Savona), together with the decisive defeat of a French relief force under Francis de Bourbon, Comte de St. Pol at the Battle of Landriano, ended Francis's hopes of regaining his hold on Italy;
❖ -- 1529, August 5th: Following the defeat of his armies, Francis sought peace with Charles. The negotiations began in July 1529 in the border city of Cambrai; The final Treaty of Cambrai, signed on 5 August, removed France from the war, leaving Venice, Florence, and the Pope alone against Charles;
❖ --1529, September: Charles, having arrived in Genoa, proceeded to Bologna to meet with the Pope. Clement absolved the participants of the sack of Rome and promised to crown Charles.
❖ -- 1529, October: Clement’s actions prompted the Venetians to protest. In return, Charles was to receive Ravenna and Cervia; cities which the Republic of Venice would be forced to surrender—along with her remaining possessions in Apulia— and to Charles, in exchange for being permitted to retain the holdings she had won at Marignano. In retaliation of the Pope efforts, the Venetians threatened to strike out from the Veneto with a full complement of an invading army as well as Venetian blockades of major port cities on the coasts of the northern Mediterranean cities. The Venetian Empire would eventually regain Ravenna and Cervia, retain Apulia and Marignano. The Pope crowned Charles who abandoned his earlier plan to place Alessandro de' Medici on the throne, in part due to Venetian objections, for the sum of 900,000 scudi. Finally, Francesco Ferruccio was permitted to return to Milan.
❖ -- 1530, August 10: The Republic of Florence and the Venetian Empire continued to resist the Imperial forces, which were led by the Prince of Orange. A Florentine and Venetian army under Francesco Ferruccio engaged the armies of the Emperor at the Battle of Gavinana in 1530, and the Prince of Orange himself was killed, the Imperial army in time lost a decisive victory and surrendered ten days later. Alessandro de' Medici was then exiled by the combined Army under Ferruccio, him fleeing back to Paris;

1537:
Construction began on the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (National Library of St Mark's). It would be the city’s library and is one of the earliest surviving public manuscript depositories in the country, holding one of the greatest classical texts collections in the world. The library is named after Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice. (construction continued to the early 1590s). The gem of the collections in the library is the gift to the Serenissima of the manuscript collection assembled by Byzantine humanist, scholar, patron and collector, Cardinal Bessarion; some 750 codices in Latin and Greek, to which he added another 250 manuscripts and some printed books (incunabula), constituting the first "public" library open to scholars in Venice;

1538, deep winter:
Lucca Arcasian was supposedly born; though Lucca’s past is virtually unknown, spotty at best… as most of the truest facts are deeply embedded within his own mind. A past with a family history ne’r spoken of by the man himself; but rumored by those claiming to know him, and speculated by those that fear him.

1538, June 9th:
Antonio Barbaro Moresini, of the patrician Moresini Familia, and Pirate, is born;

1539:
❖ -- February 16th: Council of Ten creates the State Inquisitors, a tribunal of three judges chosen from among its members to deal with threats to state security;
❖ -- April 6th: Dominic Caresini, Venetian Marangoni, architect, genius and inventor is born;

1540, June 9th:
In a little known world the Venetians call the Granducato di Mosca (Grand Duchy of Moscow) in a cold and desolate urban dwelling Venetian scholars called Nizhny Novgorod, where the Oka River empties into the Volga River, a child was born to Vladimir Ivanovich Baranov, Novograd’s knyaz namestniks (Rus nobility in charge of local administration of the district. Vladimir was also the second cousin to Lukyan Stepanovich Streshnyov, a nobleman from Mozhaysk), and his wife, Mariya Fyodorovna, handmaid to Grand Princess consort of Moscow, Elena Vasilyevna Glinskaya. The proud parents named him Alexander Vladimirovich Baranov.... Sasha for short....

1541, October 31st:
Rizardo Donà, gondolier, born in Venezia;

1542:
❖ -- January 28th: Giovanni d’ Foscari, descendant of dishonored Familia Foscari, and merchant, is born;
❖ -- The post of Governatore dei Condannati was created at this time as convicts (condannati) and Muslim captives began to be employed as rowers in the Venetian navy. The use of convicts to row the galleys increased over time, except for the flagships and the galleasses. Finally, as the number of galleys in the Venetian fleet diminished in favor of sailing ships-of-the-line;
❖ -- May 1st: Tessina Calogera, assassin, was born in Verona to an Italian playwright and minor dramatist. Tessina was his only child and did not know her mother. According to her father, her mother, likely a courtesan or prostitute that was her father's muse, presumably died in childbirth, but Tess always had her doubts about that story as her father loved tall tales and making up fictional endings to ordinary outings.

1543:
The Venetians land on Tanegashima, becoming the first Europeans to arrive in Giapòn, and introduce the arquebus into Japanese warfare;

1543, March 22nd:
Marco d’Ezzelini, was born in Romano d'Ezzelino; a direct descendent of Ezzelino I, an ancient Veneto family. The youngest of six sons of Pilippo d’Ezzelini and Esmeralda Sangria of Portugal.

1544:
❖ -- June 26th: Stefano Vendramine, Patrician, is born;
❖ -- September 30: Gaetano Giustiniani, Patrician and Book d’Oro member, is born;

1545, October 31st:
Rinaldo d’Este, Patrician and Merchant is born;

1545:
Three (3) Provveditori all'Armar are established to supervise the provisioning and equipment of the fleet and its crews, while the enlistment of crews and officers was the charge of the Savio alla Scrittura. The technical administration was exercised by the Colleggio della Milizia da Mar (College of the Sea Militia); comprised of:
❖ -- Provveditori all'Armar,
❖ -- Provveditori all'Arsenale (in charge of the Arsenal),
❖ -- Sopra i Biscotti (of provisions as "regarding the biscuits"), and
❖ -- Provveditori alle Artigleriehe (the artillery), as well as the
❖ -- Pagadori all'Armarthe ( paymasters of fleet),
❖ -- three of the Savi, and
❖ -- a ducal councillor;

1547, October 21st:
Lady Elizabeth “Biatta” Stanley is born.

1549:
Giapòn officially ends its recognition of Cina's regional hegemony and cancel any further tribute missions;

1550:
Major trade deals gets Republic control of trade routes again;

1551, July 13th:
Dante d’Ettore, the junior lieutenant of the Corazzieri, is born;

1552:
❖ -- 6 April: Nicolo “Nico” de Bastian is born in Venice;
❖ -- August 14th: Fra Paolo Sarpi, (Paulus Venetus), expert, philosopher, was born in Venice;

1554:
The Giapòn tripartite pact (three-way pact) among prime leaders, Takeda Shingen of Kai Province, Hōjō Ujiyasu of Sagami Province, and Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga Province, is signed, reassuring the Giapòn trade alliance with Venezia and her Republic;

1555, July 13th:
Anzola Zannotta, owner of the infamous L’ Anatra Ubriaca (The Drunken Duck Tavern), is born;

1562:
The Sumptuary Laws, which placed strict limits on lavish displays of wealth, required that all gondolas be painted black;

1567:
El Greco (1541-1614) arrived in Venice as a painter if icons in the hieratic, late-Byzantine style;

1570 - 1577:
Alvise Mocenigo, (b. 26 October 1507 – d. 4 June 1577) is Doge Alvise I Mocenigo of Venice from 1570 to present times;

1570 - 1573 :
The Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War, also known as the ”War of Cyprus” was fought between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice, the latter joined by the Holy League, a coalition of Christian states formed under the auspices of the Pope, which included Spain (with Naples and Sicily), the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights Hospitaller, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and other Italian states;
❖ -- 1567: Despite the existing peace treaty with Venice and the opposition of a peace party around Grand Vizier, the war party at the Ottoman court prevailed. A favorable juridical opinion was secured, which declared that the breach of the treaty was justified since Cyprus was a "former land of Islam" (briefly in the 7th century) and had to be retaken;
❖ -- 1568: On the Venetian side, Ottoman intentions had been clear and an attack against Cyprus had been anticipated for some time. A war scare had broken out in 1564–1565, when the Ottomans eventually sailed for Malta, and unease mounted again as the scale of the Ottoman naval build-up became apparent;
❖ -- 1569: The defenses of Cyprus, Crete, Corfu, and other Venetian possessions were upgraded, their garrisons increased, and attempts were made to make the isolated holdings of Crete and Cyprus more self-sufficient by the construction of foundries and gunpowder mills;
❖ -- 1570: Ottoman preparations and the warnings sent by the Venetian bailo at Constantinople, Marco Antonio Barbaro, had convinced the Signoria that war was imminent. Reinforcements and money were sent post-haste to Crete and Cyprus. In March, an Ottoman envoy was sent to Venice, bearing an ultimatum that demanded the immediate cession of Cyprus. Although some voices were raised in the Venetian Signoria advocating the cession of the island in exchange for land in Dalmatia and further trading privileges, the hope of assistance from the other Christian states stiffened the Republic's resolve, and the ultimatum was categorically rejected
❖ -- 1570, July 3rd : The Turks began their attack on Nicosia, Cyprus, after Venice refused to surrender the island;
❖ -- 1570, September 23rd: The Turks began their attack on Famagusta, Cyprus, which was fortified by Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadino (1523-1571)
❖ -- 1571, May 20th: Venice, Spain, and Pope Pius V formed an anti-Turkish The Lega Santa (Holy League) that included the major Catholic maritime states in the Mediterranean, except France;
❖ -- 1571, September 1st: Famagusta, Cyprus, surrendered to Mustafa Pasha commander of the Turkish forces after nearly a one-year siege. The terms of surrender appeared agreeable to Venetian Gov. Marcantonio Bragadino (b.1523), but Mustafa Pasha turned on Bragadino and had him violently tortured and finally flayed alive;
❖ -- 1571, October 7th: Spanish, Genoese and Venetian ships of the Christian League defeated an Ottoman fleet in the naval Battle of Lepanto, Greece. In the last great clash of galleys, the Ottoman navy lost 117 ships to a Christian naval coalition under the overall command of Spain's Don Juan de Austria, which resulted in a crushing victory for the Christian fleet, while the Ottoman fleet was effectively destroyed;

---

❖ -- The strategic situation after Lepanto was graphically summed up later by the Ottoman Grand Vizier to the Venetian Ambassador: "The Christians have singed my beard [meaning the fleet], but I have lopped off an arm. My beard will grow back. The arm [meaning Cyprus], will not". Despite the Grand Vizier's bold statement, however, the damage suffered by the Ottoman fleet was crippling—not so much in the number of ships lost, but in the almost total loss of the fleet's experienced officers, sailors, technicians and marines. Well aware of how hard it would be to replace such men, in the next year the Venetians and the Spanish executed those experts they had taken captive;
❖ -- 1573, March 7th: After four (4) years of war, all parties in this war were weary, yet the Venetians continued to produce their massive war machine upon the seas. The Arsenale was working day and night producing ships paid for by Ottoman gold and loot from supply ships. Meanwhile, Marco Antonio Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador who had been imprisoned since 1570, conducted the negotiations between the Ottoman Empire, The Venetian Republic, and the Holy League. In view of the Republic's ability to regain Cyprus, the resulting treaty was and confirmed the new state of affairs: Cyprus became a Venetian province, and the Ottomans would pay an indemnity of 300,000 ducats. In addition, the border between the two powers in Dalmatia was modified by the Venetian occupation of small but important parts of the hinterland that included the most fertile agricultural areas near the cities, with beneficial effects on the economy of the Venetian cities in Dalmatia. Peace would continue between the two states to present;

1571:
❖ -- Andrea Calmo, Venetian playwright and pioneer in comedia dell’arte, died;
❖ -- In accordance of the signed Giapòn tripartite pact (three-way pact) between prime leaders, Takeda Shingen of Kai Province, Hōjō Ujiyasu of Sagami Province, and Imagawa Yoshimoto of Suruga Province, reassuring the Giapòn trade alliance with Venezia and her Republic, Nagasaki is established as trade port for Venetian merchants, with final travel authorizations of daimyo Õmura Sumitada;

1574:
Current Year

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1575:
The Venetian are premier upon the seas... and the results of the Fourth Ottoman–Venetian War are lands ceded back to the Venetian Republic and a full-standing army that are garrisoned in several strategic locations and supported by violent sea battles that forced the Ottoman Empire to cede Cyprus and other lost territories back to Venetian control. A long-standing military of merchant sailors, a standing Army was a new concept to the Venetian Republic; as well as a new challenge to their foes. In fear of the downturn of trade, the loss of revenue, and a grander reason, plus the renewed threat of the Ottoman Empire again encroaching on Venetian territory, the Doge, the Signoria, and the Senato unanimously decided to alter strategy and look to the future of the Republic. Again, the Navy is expanding;

1576 - 1578:
The plague occurred again killing 50,000, about one third of the population of the city. Bodies buried on the Lazzaretto Nuovo island, north of the lagoon city, amid other corpses buried in a mass grave. Experts said the remains of a woman with a brick stuck between her jaws indicated that she was believed to be a vampire;

1576, August 27th:
The Venetian painter Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), born circa 1488, renown for his handling of color and mastery of new oil techniques that made him one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance, died of the plague;

1577:
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1578:
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